Habla English?

Spanish-language media does the trick for reaching Hispanic
adults, but for Hispanic youth, you can't make any assumptions.

Marketers will have to set aside bigger budgets to develop ads
that speak to Hispanic youth.

When Spanish-language cable station GalavisiÃ³n launched two
weekday prime-time blocks of bilingual programs last spring, the
move provoked some controversy. GalavisiÃ³n's parent company,
UnivisiÃ³n, the Spanish-language broadcast network targeted at
Hispanic adults, is renowned for its strict ban on English-language
programming and advertising messages. When the new shows initially
aired, several long-time viewers called in to express their
discontent. But as a cable station, GalavisiÃ³n had the freedom
to reach out to what it perceived to be a growing yet ignored
niche: bilingual and bicultural Hispanic youth.

Hispanics under the age of 18 constitute one of the largest and
most complex demographics in the nation. Unlike their parents and
grandparents, who felt compelled to, at least publicly, melt into
the American pot, this generation of consumers â€” representing
35 percent of all Hispanics â€” wants the best of both worlds.
As a result, the Spanish-only media channels that keep their
parents entertained and informed are not always enough, and
marketing to them in their own language no longer means simply
translating general market strategies into EspaÃ±ol. More
culturally relevant media vehicles and advertising messages, better
media planning, and bigger budgets are a must for any marketer
trying to build brand loyalty with tomorrow's
â€œmainstreamâ€? consumers, as those consumers are and will
increasingly be of Hispanic origin.

By 2005, Hispanic youth will overtake blacks to become the
largest ethnic youth population, accounting for 17 percent of all
those under age 18, and 45 percent of all minority minors in the
U.S. This segment is helping to fuel the growth of the entire youth
market: By the end of the decade, 1 kid in 5 will be Hispanic,
amounting to a 22 percent increase in nine years, while during the
same period, the proportion of white youth will experience a
decrease of 5 percent. In fact, in several top urban markets
â€” breeding grounds for consumer trends â€” Hispanic kids
and teens already constitute the majority: 58 percent of the
under-20 crowd in Los Angeles are Hispanic, and their share is
expected to reach 80 percent by 2003.

While all kids and teens today are hard to reach, with the
ever-growing assortment of media channels at their disposal,
Hispanic youth are even more difficult to target. Unlike their
non-Hispanic counterparts, more than three-quarters of them are
bilingual, and thus they have another set of media to consume
â€” the Spanish-language media. â€œWhen you talk about
targeting today's youth, there's all this talk about marketing to
their individuality,â€? says Daisy Exposito, president of the
Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) and of The
Bravo Group, Young & Rubicam's Hispanic shop. â€œFor young
Latinos, their bilingualism is a huge part of their
individuality.â€?

One of the biggest misperceptions about U.S. Hispanic teens,
says Olivia Llamas, project director of the Yankelovich Hispanic
MONITOR, is that they will eventually be completely assimilated
into American culture, in language, social habits, and media
consumption, and become indistinguishable from their general market
counterparts. In fact, a look at the top five English-language TV
programs and magazines for Hispanic teens (aged 12 to 17) and kids
(aged 6 to 11) matched against their white counterparts reveals
little differentiation. In any given week, for instance, the No. 1
show for both Hispanic and white teens is The Simpsons, capturing
41 percent and 31 percent respectively, according to Simmons Market
Research. Similarly, the No. 1 magazine perused by Hispanic and
white kids is Nickelodeon magazine, capturing 23 percent and 20
percent of each group. These comparisons can be misleading,
however. â€œMarketers think that eventually they will only need
to advertise in English in order to reach U.S. Hispanic
youth,â€? says Llamas. â€œBut what we are finding is the
opposite, they're not losing that language or culture.â€?

On the contrary, they are increasingly embracing it. Fifty-four
percent of U.S. Hispanic teens identify themselves as
â€œHispanic Onlyâ€? or â€œMore Hispanic than
American.â€? Another 36 percent perceive themselves as being
equally grounded in both cultures, according to TNS Market
Development. Only 6 percent consider themselves â€œmore
American than Hispanic,â€? and just 4 percent say they are
â€œAmerican only.â€?

While their elders are still much more likely to prefer Spanish
to English in all aspects of their lives, including media
consumption, there has been a significant jump in Spanish-language
preference among Hispanic youth in recent years. Twenty-nine
percent of 16- to 24-year-olds say they prefer Spanish, up from 23
percent in 1997, according to the MONITOR. And even though 45
percent of this group prefers English, 65 percent still watch
Spanish-language TV â€” for an average of 1.7 hours per day
â€” and 59 percent listen to Spanish-language radio.

So while reaching the adult Hispanic population is a no-brainer
â€” an ad on UnivisiÃ³n or Telemundo usually does the trick
â€” reaching today's Hispanic youth can cause some serious
headaches. â€œFor the 18- to 49-year-old Hispanic group, we go
directly to Spanish-language media,â€? says Graziella Flathers,
media planning supervisor at Hispanic ad agency Bromley
Communications, in San Antonio. â€œBut when targeting Hispanic
youth, you can't make any assumptions.â€?

Flathers had her work cut out for her last spring when she began
to develop the Hispanic youth media plan for her client, The
American Legacy Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based organization
established to reduce smoking as part of the 1998 settlement
against major tobacco companies. By conducting extensive research
and analysis of ratings data for individual programs, she found
that WWF Smackdown, in English, on UPN, delivered a huge chunk of
their target audience. The show reaches about 35 percent of all
Hispanic teens in any given week, according to Simmons. Flathers
also found that in many of the top 10 markets, the three most
popular radio stations for Hispanic teen delivery were in English.
And yet, according to a recent analysis by Starcom Worldwide, 9 of
the top 15 rated shows among Hispanic teens are on UnivisiÃ³n,
and thus Spanish TV also needed to be included. â€œFor an
advertiser to be effective with today's Hispanic youth market, he
needs to be everywhere they are, and with a message that is
relevant to them, both in Spanish and in English,â€? says
Monica Gadsby, senior vice president and director of Hispanic media
for Starcom. Advertisers targeting the general youth market should
also take note: The inclusion of Spanish-language TV in
teen-targeted schedules will not only optimize delivery of Hispanic
teens, but will increase a plan's total teen-market reach by as
much as 4 to 5 percentage points, according to Starcom's
analysis.

We are the World

Ethnic kids and teens are fueling
growth in the youth market.

(UNDER AGE 18)

2001

2010

2020

2030

% CHANGE
(2001-2030)

Total Youth

71.0 mil

72.5 mil

77.6 mil

83.4 mil

+18%

Hispanic*

11.3 (16%)

13.7 (19%)

17.2 (22%)

21.0 (25%)

+85%

Non-Hispanic White

45.2 (64%)

42.7 (59%)

42.4 (55%)

42.3 (51%)

-6%

Non-Hispanic Black

10.7 (15%)

11.3 (16%)

12.2 (16%)

13.2 (16%)

+24%

Asian/Pacific Islander

3.2 (5%)

4.0 (6%)

5.0 (7%)

6.1 (7%)

+94%

Other Non-Hispanic

0.7 (1%)

0.7 (1%)

0.8 (1%)

0.9 (1%)

+27%

(in millions, % of total youth)

Percentages may not equal 100 due to
rounding.

*Hispanics can be of any race

Source: U.S. Census Bureau;
calculations by American Demographics

Read All About It

Hispanic teens are 120 percent more likely than the average U.S.
teen to peruse Shape magazine.

TOP FIVE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE MAGAZINE TITLES, BY
INDEX*

HISPANIC TEENS (12 TO 17)

INDEX

INDEX

HISPANIC KIDS (6 TO 11)

Shape

220

Thrasher

145

InStyle

161

Totally Fox Kids

134

Beckett Sports Collectibles

153

Child Life

132

Jump

149

Children's Playmate

118

GamePro

134

Disney Adventures

114

*An index of 100 is the national
average.

Source: Simmons Market Research,
Spring 2000

Media planning and buying may start to get a little easier,
thanks to a slew of new media vehicles aimed at reaching this
group. In addition to GalavisiÃ³n's bilingual programming
efforts, the past year was filled with English-language cable
stations launching new youth-oriented shows with Hispanic themes
and characters. In February, the FOX Kids Network premiered Los
Luchadores, a kids' adventure series that has characters such as
Lobo Fuerte and an eyepatch-wearing villain Chihuahua. Nickelodeon
also launched three new programs this season: The Brothers Garcia,
Dora the Explorer, and Taina, all of which feature Hispanic kids as
main characters. And SÃ­TV, an English-language, 24-hour cable
network devoted to Latino-themed programming, is expected to launch
this fall. While Bromley's Flathers is still taking a wait-and-see
attitude toward SÃ­TV, she has high hopes. â€œIt's not
something I would jump into headfirst, but I'm anxious to see what
happens,â€? she says. â€œWhenever there are new
opportunities to reach this youth market, we're all on the edge of
our seats. The options today are very limited.â€?

In addition to new program content, major TV networks are giving
marketers options in the form of more flexible advertising
policies. Last September, for what is thought to be the first time
ever, CBS accepted Spanish and bilingual ads during their
prime-time broadcast of the Latin Grammy Awards. Adding fuel to the
trend, in January, Nickelodeon became the first major
English-language cable network to accept bilingual advertising
during regular programming. Chuck E. Cheese's, the child-oriented
pizza and entertainment chain, owned by CEC Entertainment, was the
first advertiser to bite. But considering that the network attracts
66 percent of all Hispanic children aged 2 to 11 each month, or
about 4 million, others are expected to follow.

That is, of course, if they can afford it. The out-of-pocket
costs for English-language media tend to be about 10 times more
than for Spanish-language media, so buying it on a traditional
Hispanic marketing budget (which is often pennies compared with
general market dollars) may be a problem for some companies.
â€œJust to buy English local radio in the top 10 markets could
eat up Hispanic dollars for a year,â€? says Flathers. And since
reaching the segment and getting through to them are two different
things, more production money will be needed to develop relevant
creative that speaks to them, regardless of language.

Unlike prior generations, messages targeted to today's Hispanic
teens do not have to be in Spanish to be understood. But marketers
who use the language in their ad messages may reach them on a more
emotional level. The California Wellness Foundation's â€œGet
Real About Teen Pregnancyâ€? print campaign series, called
â€œThe Word,â€? did just that. Each execution featured one
Spanish word, in bold, at the top of each ad, for instance:
â€œEducaciÃ³n,â€? â€œSalud,â€?
â€œFuturo,â€? while the rest of the text, explaining the
problem of teen pregnancy, was in English. â€œWe know that most
of these teens, and the policymakers we're trying to target, speak
English, but we wanted to do something to connect to their roots
and grab their attention,â€? says Dawn Wilcox, public education
director for the campaign and vice president of Ogilvy Public
Relations Worldwide.

Hispanic teens tend to watch Spanish television with their
parents and English television with their siblings or friends.

PERCENTAGE OF HISPANIC TEENS WHO SAY THEY USUALLY SPEND
TIME WATCHING TV WITHâ€¦

SPANISH TV

ENGLISH TV

Mom or dad

62%

21%

Brothers or sisters

23%

64%

Other adults in the home

11%

2%

Friends

9%

17%

Source: Starcom Worldwide's Kidscope
Study

Being â€œin-cultureâ€? with today's youth is something
with which most marketers and traditional Hispanic ad agencies have
little experience. That's why Roberto Ramos launched Ruido Group, a
Hispanic-youth-focused communications agency in New York City, last
fall. Ramos' first project, a bilingual TV, print, and radio effort
for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, will launch in
September. It will attempt to tap into kids' sense of
Familismo, not to mention good old-fashioned guilt. The
theme: If you do drugs, you're letting down your immediate family
and friends.

In addition to promoting core Hispanic values in their
marketing, Ramos also stresses that businesses need to pay more
attention to the nuances that separate youth from different
countries, and capture those cultural, religious, and idiomatic
differences in their messages when targeting specific geographic
locales. Fifty-four percent of Hispanics in the MONITOR, for
example, say they feel there are some important differences between
themselves and other Hispanic groups. â€œFor many clients,
knowing about these differences is not necessarily to guide them in
targeting, but in trying to avoid mistakes,â€? says the
MONITOR's Llamas. Marketers who want to use soccer in all their
Hispanic-targeted advertising, for example, need to wake up.
â€œSoccer may work for some, but on the East Coast, most
Hispanics are from the Dominican Republic and Cuba, where baseball
is king.â€?

As Hispanic youth become a bigger portion of the American pie,
the group will need to be sliced in ways that better resemble the
segmentation of the general market, in which ads are targeted more
to interests, lifestyles, and attitudes. Indeed, experts expect
that the overall diversity of America's youth â€” already 36
percent of all children are of a race or ethnicity other than white
â€” will force market segments not only within the Hispanic,
black, Asian, and other ethnic communities, but across them. The
use of â€œattitudeâ€? or â€œpsychographicâ€?
research to define those new boundaries will take on a larger role
in market research, creative execution, and media buys in the
future, experts say.

â€œHispanics, and other ethnic kids, have multiple
categories for themselves,â€? says Ben Gervey, a psychologist
and a director at Applied Research & Consulting in New York
City, which conducts attitudinal research. â€œThey may consider
their Hispanic heritage as being more or less central to their
identity, but it is not their only identity, and they shouldn't be
marketed to as if it is.â€?